Chapati - The fine Indian bread

Back home chapatti is an essential member of every meal. Hats off to all the ladies who make chapatti's for the whole family twice a day, every single day !
Making chapatis is a skillfull activity and it takes some practice to be able to make soft and nice chapatis. And to make them fast juggling between rolling one chapati and roasting other at the same time is another skill. I am still working on the second skill :).
Before sharing the ingrdients, I would like to mention that we need some specific utensils or tools for making chapati's. The rolling pin(latna), rolling board(polpat) and a roti press. We also need a flat pan (tawa) to roast the chapati's.

Ingredients : Wheat floor - 2 cups, Salt - 2 tea spoons, oil - 1 tb spoon, Warm water- around 1 cup.

Step 1: Kneading the Dough: Take the wheat floor in a vessel (ideally a plate with high walls called parat is used for this). Add the salt and oil to it. Slowly add water in little proportins while kneading the dough. You may use a little oil in the end to get a smooth dough.



Put the flat Pan on medium heat so that it is ready by the time we roast the first chapati. Make small balls of dough. Each ball is aroun 1.5-2 inches in diameter. Each ball is going to turn into 1 chapati. Soak the ball in dry wheat floor and roll it on the rolloing board into a small circular shape. Apply a drop of pil and fold it into a semicircle. Again apply oil and fold into a quadrant as shown in the picture.



Now the challenge is to roll this quarter back into a circle. Apply some wheat floor and start rolling at the corners and edges. Keep turning the chapati to get uniform thinckness everywhere. Make a big round chapati. Put this chapati on the hot pan. turn it when it starts puffing. Turn again if needed. A puffed chapati is a success.



You may use the roti press to press the chapati to get the chapati cook uniformly over complete area.

Store the chapatis in a casserole or serve hot with your favourite curry.

Simplest Spinach Recipe I know

Spinach is a frequent member or our regular meals and I like experimenting new recipe's with Spinach. You must like the spinach taste to like this dish as it does not have any spicy taste . It is certainly on my list of healthy and nutirtious menu options.

Ingredients :

Spinach - Coarsely chopped

2 green chillies- chopped

4-5 garlic cloves finely chopped

oil, mustard seeds, turmeric powder, asaphoetida(hing) and salt

Heat some oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds and wait till they start spluttering. Add a little turmeric powder and asaphoetida followed by chopped garlic cloves and green chillies. Keep stiring for a minute or two. Finally add chopped spinach and mixit well. Cook with continuous stirring till the spinach changes color to blackish green.

Serve with fresh chapatti's :).

I had some leftover rice and no dal so I decided to mix rice with the spinach recipe and named the new dish as palak rice.